Althought the manual says that the Fit is designed to work with regular 87 gas. I am just wondering what grade of gas do you guys give to your fit? and does the premium grades have better MPG than the regular ones?

 

The engine is designed to run on 87 and that's all I run, its NEVER EVER WORTH RUNNING PREMIUM in a car designed to run on 87

 

I can see that you took the time to read the owners manual that came with your car but yours must be different than the one my car came with.... Mine says to never use gasoline with an octane rating less than 87... I suggest that since it is a personal choice you have to make you should do your own evaluation between the different grades of fuel... Some people can tell no difference and others can so do like I did and find out for yourself.

 

Mine says to use 87 or higher but quality gasolines contraining deterfent additives is recomended b/c it prevents fuel system and engine deposits. So I guess we can fill up with grades higher than 87.

What grade do you use?

 

The highest I can get which is 93 octane around here but I have to now because my car is supercharged but even before I did the same.. There are older threads where I have been called names and had my intelligence questioned by those that choose to use the cheaper fuel but it is nothing new to me.

 

Yup, it is really up to how your car is running - now some people say they can tell the difference if they use the lower grade of gasoline. I had a Ford Ranger and it ran great on Premium. Now the Fit I run on 87 because I tried Premium and it did not run as smoothly, and the engine did not seem to run as well. My boss always gave me heck on this because he claimed that the car should run the same no matter what grade of fuel you use. Like my friend Texas said - you can definitely try one out and then the other checking performance and milage - to see which your car likes best!

Cat

 

right now I am on 91 octane the manual says 87 or higher so I don't see why we can't give it better gas if we choose to.

I use to drive my mom's Lexus GS300 and I think we gave it 91 octane, I didn't know that until one time I filled it up with 93 and felt that the acceleration was much faster than before so I asked my mom. That was then I knew that different grades of gas does make a difference.

So why do you choose the 93 instead of 87? i am interested in your reasonings!

 

Honda has a advanced ecu, the dealer knows nothing but the patches and dtc codes. If there is a problem they replace it. Honda has a higher compression than most running regular. Some cars will run fine on regular but some engines builds carbon up and your gas mileage will drop because the knock sensor retards timing and engine runs hotter compounding the problem. There are advantages to Premium, a few are the car runs in the most advance settings, engine runs a little leaner, I get better mileage but I drive a lot of highway and have used regular so I know theres a difference.

Most cars than run premium are cars that motors cost a lot more money to replace 10000 plus, so running premium helps them live longer. There is a math equation that you can find the MEP. The civic Si requires premium but MEP is lower than the Fit. Here is an old post of mine that explains that.



QUOTE=SilverBullet;856828]I was looking for some thing to help me explain better and there is not good write up on a Honda website. I found this on a Toyota website How, EXACTLY, does the ECU work? - Toyota Tundra Forums : Tundra Solutions Forum

Also as far as tuning here is a few links

Innovate Motorsports Wideband Air/Fuel Ratio Tuning Very good info

Daytona Sensors LLC - Tech FAQ Engine Tuning


I also ran the numbers from Honda and found out the the Mep pressure is higher on the fit than it is for the civic si that requires premium. The only thing that is different is that civic si engine red line is little higher. MEP=150.8*(torque/cubic inches) Fit is 91.5 cubic inches.

The point of this to help some of you understand How a car works. Its all in the math.
In 2007 Honda took a big hit in Horsepower and Torque for the 2006 numbers would be higher.[/QUOTE]

 

I agree that the car will run 87, but where does it say its never ever worth running premium. If it did it would not say 87 or higher in the owners manual. I also want to learn about cars designed to run 87 octane only? Even a Model T Ford can run on ethanol which is high octane in a really low compression motor. It could even run kerosene with out the need of high compression to burn. Dont put kerosene in any car the ecu and engine will not burn it and you can ruin the engine.

Ford Model T - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia




On a model T Ford you adjust the timing and fuel, ecu takes that over with sensors. The regular only saying came to be in the early 70s because there was only two gas types regular unleaded and mid grade 89 had lead in it. Cars didn't advance until unleaded premium gas came out in the late 80s. They found out that premium gas allowed them to build a higher output engine and with the invent of knock sensors and better oxygen sensors they could use lower octane gas.

 

my mistake the manual says 87 or higher

 

Your right you said 87 or higher.

 

I purchased my car new in July 2006 and never had a problem with the stock performance after I had readjusted to driving a small displacement engined car again..... It always felt stronger and got better fuel mileage on premium.... I guess my car was quicker than the later produced cars that everyone was whining about being so slow because the ECU was set up differently .... If the KraftWerks kit hadn't have been released and such a great high quality kit I would still be as happy as I had been with my car in it's stock engined form.

 

I don't know if there is an engine out there which is designed for 87 only but the higher octane fuels help prevent predetonation. If an engine (designed like the fit's L15) at it's stock compression ratio does not have issues with Predetonation, there is no need to boost the octane. It doesn't mean that you CAN'T, but it does mean that there is no NEED to do so in a stock Engine. When Spark is added, Regular, Midgrade, & Premium all detonate and produce the same amount of power in an engine designed to run natively on 87... so what is the benefit of adding 89, 91, or higher?

There shouldn't be any detriment to running a higher octane and when in a shady area with Bob's Gas, it might make sense to go 91 or higher just so you get something that is likely to be of higher quality but if you are using a tier1 gas station, the only difference you should realistically see between regular & Premium (that have the same additives) is the addition of a coffee in your hand with regular in the tank.

~SB

 

The more I get into this the more I understand premium. Just as many people put premium oils in there cars its the same reasons I use premium gas. My wife had a problem with regular gas, hard starting wanted to stall, no power with 3000 miles on her car. I put premium in a few days ago and today when we went out NO problems. I think the problem is ethanol in which we have no choice. I learned that ethanol free gas is still available but hard to find. Ive done a few posts that explain this better. I get better mileage so if I help a few other people get better mileage isn't that what this is for? I never said that 87 wont work but I drive a lot of Interstates and even when I take the local highways I get even better mileage in a shorter amount of time because of coasting and timing lights. I ran into a person that worked at a refinery that closed down a while back he said why use premium you only get 24 miles per 10 gallons, I had to take a step back because thats about 8 percent the cost of the fuel and not 2.4 percent he though it was.

Both Shell,BP and now mobil say there more additives in their premium gas. 4-5 times the epa minimum. Gasoline additive - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia and more friction modifiers. Less friction more horsepower and mileage.

 

Proof, please?

Last week my wife had problems with her car (09 pontiac solstice with lnf turbo and gmpp factory tune) running rough. After the tune GM required premium. Before it was only recommended. She only uses premium fuel. I wound it out and it threw a code (MAPT sensor out of range, I think). The dealer could find no problem (it went away on its own).

I only use regular in my Fit where Honda specifies octane 87 or higher. Never had a problem.

What does this prove? absolutely nothing. Using your logic though, she should switch to regular.

 

I agree with everyone that says The Honda Fit Owners Manual is stating "at least 87 Octane"...so that denotes to me that higher Octanes can be chosen.

When I first purchased my Fit, I had no dog in this hunt, I experimented with tanks of regular and premium. With my driving style, I found no discernible benefit to the higher octane, infact (it may of been my imagination) but I felt the vehicle actually ran slightly rougher with the premium. So now I fill consistently with regular.

To further muddy the debate, my personal decision is also to stay with Top Tier gas stations as much as possible. So for me, it's regular and Chevron or Shell. But honestly, I think as long as you follow the recommendation which is "at least" 87 octane...I think in most cases....it's fill and go.

I considered it a benefit or plus of The Fit that it can run on regular. One of the reasons I passed on a Mini-Cooper is that you MUST fill with premium. Not the crux of my decision to go with The Fit...but I find it a economical benefit.

 

"top tier" is a marketing campaign begun by Quick Trip. I remember hearing radio ads by Quick Trip that made it sound orgasmic. Here's a bit on it. (the domain has since been registered by GM, I suppose because people caught on). Their website is absolutely bereft of anything to lend it any legitimacy (like an "About us" page or links to an independent lab that does their testing, or even test results.) Here's a bit more. This 2004 press release is hilarious in light of this information.

It has influenced my purchasing Shell fuel (I imagine nice clean dutch girls), but after researching the great sulfur debate (another silverbullet production) I learned that Shell is being sued for excessive sulfur in their fuels 6 years ago. That kinda cancels out any feel-good feeling "top tier" gave me for Shell.

I used to buy BP (nice clean Brit girls), but after their fiasco this past summer I stopped.

Maybe I'll put a tiger in my tank.

 

Yep, but the whole "Top Tier" debate has been addressed in other threads. I don't mean to open it up again. For me? The cost of Top Tier is only very marginally higher than purchasing gas anywhere else, and living in the suburbs and city? Shell and Chevron are numerous anyway...so for me I make the choice to use Top Tier anyway...even though I as I have admitted before, there is very little that I could point to outside of perhaps additives that makes the difference necessarily worth obsessing about.
For me it becomes "Top Tier" why not? More than a situation where it's "Top Tier"...it's a MUST....

 

Ive read these alot of these fuel threads and it really cracks me up the number of people who act like experts but clearly lack the knowledge making themselves look like jackasses. If u go to the Shell web site and look at their fuel articles they clearly state premium unleaded, or actually they call it v-power, has more of their nitrogen detergent additives then their regular unleaded. Once again, their super unleaded has more cleaning power then their regular unleaded. So there IS a difference between super and regular unleaded beyond the octane rating. Shell.com. Google it. So u can argue all day the octane differences and benifits but if u want a cleaner engine long term, go with the super unleaded. It costs me $2 more a tank to fill up with super. Wow breakin the bank huh. Not to mention crisper engine response and better average mpg.

 

If the discussion were solely on the benefits of added detergents in premium, you might have something. Unfortunately there's no way to judge one brand of gasoline against another, or between grades of the same brand with regard to detergents. The oil companies only offer marketing slogans. "V-power." um yeah, gonna get me some of that. Nitrogen: that's the ticket. "5 times the detergent as required by the EPA!" (no mention how many times better than EPA standards their regular gas is). Whiter than White!

Unfortunately comments like "better average mpg" and "crisper engine response" are equated to premium fuel, without a single verifiable citation. There are many references available from reputable sources that dismiss this as simple marketing rhetoric.

Do you believe everything you read, hear, or see in advertisements?